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  • Gathering Staff anyone interested?

    - by kasene
    Thread Title - Gathering Staff Rush-Soft Game Design is currently looking for staff of a moderate skill level. Team Name - RushSoft Game Design Project Name - N/A We are gathering staff so that we can begin working on a new game. Target Aim - Freeware / Free Version - Paid Version With our first project our aim is to simply get our name out there. Generally we will be targeting a freeware distribution platform or a Free and Paid version. Compensation - Prehaps in the future but don't rely on it If in the future we start developing a game we intend to make any sort of sizable profit from then yes, there will be compensation however currently our low, low funding comes from generous donations. Any money that we make for now will go to the teams funding for things like engine licenses and company registration. Technology - C/C++ RSETech Our primary functional language will be C/C++ as most games are. We will be using a custom built library built on Direct3D called RSETech or RushSoft Engine Technology. Currently its is fully capable of being used for developing a game. The final version is made up of almost entirely C (No C++ or OOP). There is a C++ version currently in the works. Programming: - Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 / 2010 2D Art - Photoshop CS2 - GIMP Talent Needed - We currently are in need of x2 Programmers - With understanding of the following C/C ++ and game programming aspects: -If/Else Conditions -Functions/Methods -Arrays -Pointers (You don't need to fully understand these. Just know when they need to be used.) -Enums -Loops (For and While) -Structs (and How to use . and - syntax) -Classes (and how to call methods and access variables from a class) -State Machines -Switches -Include Guards -Understanding of how game loops work in general. (Init, Update, Render, Deinit) x2 Artists - As long as you have the means to and are able to draw 2D sprites and collab with a game designer to get a good result. 1 or more Game Designers - You can design levels (for platformers) as well as write game scripts and you can come up with good ideas and game mechanics. As long as you can do these things and are able to work well with artists and programmers you're golden. Business Consultant - Someone who knows the industry and how it works. Will inquire about possible distribution platforms as well as contact other developers, websites, and publishers on RushSofts behalf. Team Structure - Kasene Clark - Co-Founder/Lead Programmer/Game Designer Casey W - Co-Founder/Artist(GC/Animation)/Game Designer Nathan Mayworm - Game Designer. Website - RushSoft Websitek Contact - Kasene Clark [email protected] - [email protected] Phone - 12075181967 Feedback - Any Thank You! -Kasene

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  • What are five things you hate about your favorite language?

    - by brian d foy
    There's been a cluster of Perl-hate on Stackoverflow lately, so I thought I'd bring my "Five things you hate about your favorite language" question to StackOverflow. Take your favorite language and tell me five things you hate about it. Those might be things that just annoy you, admitted design flaws, recognized performance problems, or any other category. You just have to hate it, and it has to be your favorite language. Don't compare it to another language, and don't talk about languages that you already hate. Don't talk about the things you like in your favorite language. I just want to hear the things that you hate but tolerate so you can use all of the other stuff, and I want to hear it about the language you wished other people would use. I ask this whenever someone tries to push their favorite language on me, and sometimes as an interview question. If someone can't find five things to hate about his favorite tool, he don't know it well enough to either advocate it or pull in the big dollars using it. He hasn't used it in enough different situations to fully explore it. He's advocating it as a culture or religion, which means that if I don't choose his favorite technology, I'm wrong. I don't care that much which language you use. Don't want to use a particular language? Then don't. You go through due diligence to make an informed choice and still don't use it? Fine. Sometimes the right answer is "You have a strong programming team with good practices and a lot of experience in Bar. Changing to Foo would be stupid." This is a good question for code reviews too. People who really know a codebase will have all sorts of suggestions for it, and those who don't know it so well have non-specific complaints. I ask things like "If you could start over on this project, what would you do differently?" In this fantasy land, users and programmers get to complain about anything and everything they don't like. "I want a better interface", "I want to separate the model from the view", "I'd use this module instead of this other one", "I'd rename this set of methods", or whatever they really don't like about the current situation. That's how I get a handle on how much a particular developer knows about the codebase. It's also a clue about how much of the programmer's ego is tied up in what he's telling me. Hate isn't the only dimension of figuring out how much people know, but I've found it to be a pretty good one. The things that they hate also give me a clue how well they are thinking about the subject.

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  • Zend Framework - Ruby on Rails has a screencast showing how to code a blog in 15 minutes. Does ZF ha

    - by Sootah
    Ruby on Rails has a screencast presentation they use to promote their framework that shows how to code a basic weblog system in 15 minutes with RoR. Does the Zend PHP Framework have a similar screencast/presentation/whatever demonstrating something similar? It doesn't have to be a blog specifically, but I would definitely like to find a presentation that shows some rapid application development using ZF. Where I'm coming from: I have been programming on and off for years now. I started out with QBASIC waaaaay back in the day making little programs (text adventure games, screensavers, simple little things). I then moved to C++ but never really did anything too impressive with it. Since then (probably 5 years or so now) I have started to use C# for my desktop development and PHP for my web development. I've made some pretty cool tools here and there, but am certainly not a professional programmer by any stretch of the term as it has always simply been a hobby of mine. Right now I have two major web applications that I will start work on shortly. (Like tomorrow, or later tonight ideally.. :) ) Both will be database-driven apps that will require user registration, the ability to manipulate data that is specific to their account (their posts, listings, user account details, etc), amongst other things. Currently I am evaluating different frameworks to help me develop these web apps more quickly. I've been looking at, and have heard good things about Ruby on Rails. Hulu and YellowPages.com using it is an obvious endorsement - Of course, I have heard about the scalability issues that it potentially has; but that shouldn't be an issue with what I am working on. I don't expect millions of users per day for either project. I am also seriously looking at the Zend Framework for my needs because I already have some experience with PHP. Ideally I would like to find a ZF screencast that shows an app being written quickly so that I have a roughly equal comparison between the two options I am exploring and can see first-hand how things get done in both. That said - I am not opposed to considering frameworks other than RoR or ZF. The only research I've done on the subject has been over the past couple of days so I am quite certain that there are other excellent options out there that I've not even looked at - or heard of. Of course, it'd be awesome if there is a rapid app dev presentation that I can watch for whatever else is suggested. So - Suggestions? Links to good screencasts that show rapid application development in other frameworks? Are there other PHP frameworks that I should be considering? (Ones that are easy to deploy would be ideal, so I don't have to purchase a dedicated server that I have full control over. I'd like to keep my hosting costs down assuming that it's reasonable) Thanks in advance! -Sootah

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  • Going from a math career to a cs career: how to do it?

    - by Joseph
    Hey, I'm looking for some advice on how to successfully make the transition from mathematics to CS. My academic background is in mathematics (BS and MSc), and I've taken loads of math courses as well. You name it, and I took it: Measure Theory, Algebra, PDES, Manifolds, Complex Analysis, etc. I progressed quite far along this track, and at one point, I thought I would be a professional mathematician...But around the time I was finishing my MSc, I really got sick of it. Studying very abstract mathematics was fun, but it really lost it's appeal to me. Outside of a couple hundred people, I'm not sure if anybody would understand my research. I did not want to be 60 years old and say that my only contribution to the world consisted of published papers. Anyways, I've been an off and on hobbyist programmer since 2002. I've programmed in C and Java (just small projects), and I really started to be drawn to the area as time passed. There's a real appeal to CS work because, well, it actually means something to other people out there! I enjoy all parts of it: designing webpages (a real artistic appeal). On the other end, I do enjoy toying with compilers and more nitty-gritty stuff as well. Suffice to say, I have broad interests out there. Anyways, I know it's a bit late, but I was wondering if there were other folks out there who made the change, and if so, how I could do so. I know I have some fairly big gaps to fill in terms of data structures, lack of internship experience, etc. But I really would like to make this work. So my question is simply: How can I make the switch from math to CS? To pay the bills, I'll be doing financial analysis for a company, but I'd like to eventually transition into a developer type position. I've been reading "Algorithm Design" by Tardos and doing all the problems. It's not hard to make progress since the problems are far more concrete than the stuff I've been doing the past six years. I feel I can make fairly rapid progress in picking up all the materials from data structures, etc. but none of it can substitute the past several years I've lost. Anyways, I'm eager to learn but would love some advice/concrete direction. Thanks, Joseph

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  • Git/Mercurial (hg) opinion

    - by Richard
    First, let me say I'm not a professional programmer, but an engineer who had a need for it and had to learn. I was always working alone, so it was just me and my seven splitted personalities ... and we worked okey as a team :) Most of my stuff is done in C/Fortran/Matlab and so far I've been learning git to manage it all. However, although I've had no unsolvable problems with it, I've never been "that" happy with it ... for everything I cannot do, I hae to look up a book. And, for some time now I've been hearning a lot of good stuff about hg. Now, a coleague of mine will have to work with me on a project (I almost feel sorry for him) and he's started learning hg (says he likes it more), and I'm considering the switch myself. We work almost exclusivly on Windows platform (although I manage relatively ok using unix tools and things that come from that part of the world). So, I was wondering, in a described scenario, what problems could I expect with the switch. I heard that hg is rather more user friendly towards windows users, regarding the user interfaces. How does it handle repositories ? Does it create them the same way as git does (just one subdirectory in a working directory) and can I just copy the whole project directory (including git repo) and just carry them somewhere with no extra thinking ? (I really liked that when I was choosing over git/svn). Are there any good books on it that you can recommend (something like Pro Git, only for Hg). What are good ways to implement hg into Visual Studio/GVim for Windows, or into Windows Explorer so I can work relatively easily (I would like to avoid using the command line for everything regarding it, like in git shell). Is there something else I should be aware of (please, on this don't point me to other questions ... they just give me a ton of info, and I'm not sure what is it that I should take as important, and what to disregard). I'm trying to cut some time, since I cannot spend all that time relearning hg, like I did for git. I've also heard git is c project, while mercurial is python ... is there any noticeable difference in speed. git was pretty speedy ... will I encounter some waiting while working. Notice: All my projects are of let's say, middle size ... mostly numerical simulations ... 10-15000 lines (medium size?)

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  • How do you attract programmers in rural areas?

    - by Reed Copsey
    I run a software development group for a very small, but stable and established company in a small town, somewhat outside of the "big city". Unfortunately, the "programmer" labor pool is much smaller due to the size of the city. There are many positives to working in this area, especially in terms of quality of life (particularly for people interested in outdoor activities), lower cost of living, great schools and neighborhoods, etc. However, I've always had difficulty attracting high-qualtiy, experienced developers. For those of you who hire developers outside of large cities: Where do you advertise to find good developers? Many of the large sites are very focused in certain metropolitan areas, and seem inappropriate places to advertise if you're outside of that main region. How do you attract quality developers to rural (or at least less metropolitan) locations? Do you find that you make more sacrifices in your hiring due to a smaller labor pool? Or do you just wait, and take extra time to attract people? What sacrifices do you expect to make if you are outside of the main developer-rich cities? For all of the developers out there... What would entice you to working in a smaller town? Are there things that would stand out and make you willing to relocate or at least apply to a position that was not nearby? What specific qualities would help you want to move outside of the city? In the past, I've had difficulty with finding good people. Most of the people who've applied and been willing to move out to a more rural location seem like the types that can't keep a quality job elsewhere. I'd like to know what advice people have to attracting quality technical staff. I don't believe its the work itself that's been the problem - The work is both interesting and challenging, and nearly 100% new development. The developers I have seem very happy with their situation - they love the work, the atmosphere, etc. It's more a matter of finding willing, able developers. Edit: More info after the first couple of answers: Right now, some of my best developers telecommute (some work from overseas); however, for this question, I'm trying to figure out how to get people who want to live and work full time locally. I need some people with whom I interact every day.

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  • Reading Source Code Aloud

    - by Jon Purdy
    After seeing this question, I got to thinking about the various challenges that blind programmers face, and how some of them are applicable even to sighted programmers. Particularly, the problem of reading source code aloud gives me pause. I have been programming for most of my life, and I frequently tutor fellow students in programming, most often in C++ or Java. It is uniquely aggravating to try to verbally convey the essential syntax of a C++ expression. The speaker must give either an idiomatic translation into English, or a full specification of the code in verbal longhand, using explicit yet slow terms such as "opening parenthesis", "bitwise and", et cetera. Neither of these solutions is optimal. On the one hand, an idiomatic translation is only useful to a programmer who can de-translate back into the relevant programming code—which is not usually the case when tutoring a student. In turn, education (or simply getting someone up to speed on a project) is the most common situation in which source is read aloud, and there is a very small margin for error. On the other hand, a literal specification is aggravatingly slow. It takes far far longer to say "pound, include, left angle bracket, iostream, right angle bracket, newline" than it does to simply type #include <iostream>. Indeed, most experienced C++ programmers would read this merely as "include iostream", but again, inexperienced programmers abound and literal specifications are sometimes necessary. So I've had an idea for a potential solution to this problem. In C++, there is a finite set of keywords—63—and operators—54, discounting named operators and treating compound assignment operators and prefix versus postfix auto-increment and decrement as distinct. There are just a few types of literal, a similar number of grouping symbols, and the semicolon. Unless I'm utterly mistaken, that's about it. So would it not then be feasible to simply ascribe a concise, unique pronunciation to each of these distinct concepts (including one for whitespace, where it is required) and go from there? Programming languages are far more regular than natural languages, so the pronunciation could be standardised. Speakers of any language would be able to verbally convey C++ code, and due to the regularity and fixity of the language, speech-to-text software could be optimised to accept C++ speech with a high degree of accuracy. So my question is twofold: first, is my solution feasible; and second, does anyone else have other potential solutions? I intend to take suggestions from here and use them to produce a formal paper with an example implementation of my solution.

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  • Boggling Direct3D9 dynamic vertex buffer Lock crash/post-lock failure on Intel GMA X3100.

    - by nj
    Hi, For starters I'm a fairly seasoned graphics programmer but as wel all know, everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately the codebase is a bit too large to start throwing sensible snippets here and re-creating the whole situation in an isolated CPP/codebase is too tall an order -- for which I am sorry, do not have the time. I'll do my best to explain. B.t.w, I will of course supply specific pieces of code if someone wonders how I'm handling this-or-that! As with all resources in the D3DPOOL_DEFAULT pool, when the device context is taken away from you you'll sooner or later will have to reset your resources. I've built a mechanism to handle this for all relevant resources that's been working for years; but that fact nothingwithstanding I've of course checked, asserted and doubted any assumption since this bug came to light. What happens is as follows: I have a rather large dynamic vertex buffer, exact size 18874368 bytes. This buffer is locked (and discarded fully using the D3DLOCK_DISCARD flag) each frame prior to generating dynamic geometry (isosurface-related, f.y.i) to it. This works fine, until, of course, I start to reset. It might take 1 time, it might take 2 or it might take 5 resets to set off a bug that causes an access violation either on the pointer returned by the Lock() operation on the renewed resource or a plain crash -- regarding a somewhat similar address, but without the offset that it has tacked on to it in the first case because in that case we're somewhere halfway writing -- iside the D3D9 dll Lock() call. I've tested this on other hardware, upgraded my GMA X3100 drivers (using a MacBook with BootCamp) to the latest ones, but I can't reproduce it on any other machine and I'm at a loss about what's wrong here. I have tried to reproduce a similar situation with a similar buffer (I've got a large scratch pad of the same type I filled with quads) and beyond a certain amount of bytes it started to behave likewise. I'm not asking for a solution here but I'm very interested if there are other developers here who have battled with the same foe or maybe some who can point me in some insightful direction, maybe ask some questions that might shed a light on what I may or may not be overlooking. Another interesting artifact is that the vertex buffer starts to bug if I supply both D3DLOCK_DISCARD and D3DLOCK_NOOVERWRITE together which, even though not very logical (you're not going to overwrite if you've just discarded all), gives graphics glitches. Thanks and any corrections are more than welcome. Niels p.s - A friend of mine raised the valid point that it is a huge buffer for onboard video RAM and it's being at least double or triple buffered internally due to it's dynamic nature. On the other hand, the debug output (D3D9 debug DLL + max. warning output) remains silent. p.s 2 - Had it tested on more machines and still works -- it's probably a matter of circumstance: the huge dynamic, internally double/trippled buffered buffer, not a lot of memory and drivers that don't complain when they should.. Unless someone has a better suggestion; I'd still love to hear it :)

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  • Mercurial for Beginners: The Definitive Practical Guide

    - by Laz
    Inspired by Git for beginners: The definitive practical guide. This is a compilation of information on using Mercurial for beginners for practical use. Beginner - a programmer who has touched source control without understanding it very well. Practical - covering situations that the majority of users often encounter - creating a repository, branching, merging, pulling/pushing from/to a remote repository, etc. Notes: Explain how to get something done rather than how something is implemented. Deal with one question per answer. Answer clearly and as concisely as possible. Edit/extend an existing answer rather than create a new answer on the same topic. Please provide a link to the the Mercurial wiki or the HG Book for people who want to learn more. Questions: Installation/Setup How to install Mercurial? How to set up Mercurial? How do you create a new project/repository? How do you configure it to ignore files? Working with the code How do you get the latest code? How do you check out code? How do you commit changes? How do you see what's uncommitted, or the status of your current codebase? How do you destroy unwanted commits? How do you compare two revisions of a file, or your current file and a previous revision? How do you see the history of revisions to a file? How do you handle binary files (visio docs, for instance, or compiler environments)? How do you merge files changed at the "same time"? Tagging, branching, releases, baselines How do you 'mark' 'tag' or 'release' a particular set of revisions for a particular set of files so you can always pull that one later? How do you pull a particular 'release'? How do you branch? How do you merge branches? How do you merge parts of one branch into another branch? Other Good GUI/IDE plugin for Mercurial? Advantages/disadvantages? Any other common tasks a beginner should know? How do I interface with Subversion? Other Mercurial references Mercurial: The Definitive Guide Mercurial Wiki Meet Mercurial | Peepcode Screencast

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  • Armchair Linguists: 'code' vs. 'codes'--or why I write 'code' and my manager asks for 'codes'

    - by Ukko
    I wanted to tap into the collective wisdom here to see if I can get some insight into one of my pet peeves, people who thread "code" as a countable noun. Let me also preface this by saying that I am not talking about anyone who speaks english as a second language, this is a native phenomenon. For those of us who slept through grammar class there are two classes of nouns which basically refer to things that are countable and non-countable (sometimes referred to as count and noncount). For instance 'sand' is a non-count noun and 'apple' is count. You can talk about "two apples" but "two sands" does not parse. The bright students then would point out a word like "beer" where is looks like this is violated. Beer as a substance is certainly a non-count noun, but I can ask for "two beers" without offending the grammar police. The reason is that there are actually two words tied up in that one utterance, Definition #1 is a yummy golden substance and Definition #2 is a colloquial term for a container of said substance. #1 is non-count and #2 is countable. This gets to my problem with "codes" as a countable noun. In my mind the code that we programmers write is non-count, "I wrote some code today." When used in the plural like "Have you got the codes" I can only assume that you are asking if I have the cryptographically significant numbers for launching a missile or the like. Every time my peer in marketing asks about when we will have the new codes ready I have a vision of rooms of code breakers going over the latest Enigma coded message. I corrected the usage in all the documents I am asked to review, but then I noticed that our customer was also using the work "codes" when they meant "code". At this point I have realized that there is a significant sub-population that uses "codes" and they seem to be impervious to what I see as the dominant "correct" usage. This is the part I want some help on, has anyone else noticed this phenomenon? Do you know what group it is associated with, old Fortran programmer perhaps? Is it a regionalism? I have become quick to change my terms when I notice a customer's usage, but it would be nice to know if I am sending a proposal somewhere what style they expect. I would hate to get canned with a review of "Ha, these guy's must be morons they don't even know 'code' is plural!"

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  • [NEWVERSION]algorithm || method to write prog[UNSOLVED] [closed]

    - by fatai
    I am one of the computer science student. Everyone solve problem with a different or same method, ( but actually I dont know whether they use method or I dont know whether there are such common method to approach problem.) if there are common method, What is it ? If there are different method, which method are you using ? All teacher give us problem which in simple form sometimes, but they donot introduce any approach or method(s) so that we cannot make a decision to choose the method then apply that one to problem , afterward find solution then write code.No help from teacher , push us to find method to solve homework. Ex: my friend is using no method , he says "I start to construct algorithm while I try to write prog." I have found one method when I failed the course, More accurately, my method: When I counter problem in language , I will get more paper and then ; first, input/ output step ; my prog will take this / these there argument(s) and return namely X , ex : in c, input length is not known and at same type , so I must use pointer desired output is in form of package , so use structure second, execution part ; in that step , I am writing all step which are goes to final output ex : in python ; 1.) [ + , [- , 4 , [ * , 1 , 2 ]], 5] 2.) [ + , [- , 4 , 2 ],5 ] 3.) [ + , 2 , 5] 4.) 7 ==> return 7 third, I will write test code ex : in c++ input : append 3 4 5 6 vector_x remove 0 1 desired output vector_x holds : 5 6 now, my other question is ; What is/are other method(s) which have/has been; used to construct class :::: for c++ , python, java used to communicate classes / computers used for solving embedded system problem ::::: for c by other user? Some programmer uses generalized method without considering prog-language(java , perl .. ), what is this method ? Why I wonder , because I learn if you dont costruct algorithm on paper, you may achieve your goal. Like no money no lunch , I can say no algorithm no prog therefore , feel free when you write your own method , a way which is introduced by someone else but you are using and you find it is so efficient

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  • What Can I Do To One Of My Team Number (Good Friend As Well) Who Lost His Passion.

    - by skyflyer
    It seems this question is not program related, but there are lot of similar questions. So please bear with me! By the way, I am programmer and my team is also charging a software project. And SO is the only place which solved me lot of thorny troubles!THANK YOU GUYS! I joined my company with him years ago. At that time he was quite passionate on his job which is a front-end development. He gave us lot of useful suggestions concerning his work like design. And I believed he was a smart guy. I believe he still is smart too by the way. One years later, however, he seemed lost his passion and fooling around every day, did not care about his work any more and produced poorwork. Even worse he literally stopped learning new skills and honing his work related skills. For me it is horrible, we got to keep abreast with new technology development, otherwise we will be throw out. Since we were just coworkers, I did not care about it too much except mentioned my thoughts several times. But last month, we resembled a new group and assigned very important project. And I am the team leader, sadly! My boss gave me lot of support and expectation as well. I did a pretty good job before and I am very optimism to our future. But as a team, if my team does not work hard, we will be doomed to failure no matter how hard I work and push. In order to revitalize his passion, I tried couple of ways like talking to him about my concern and my boss's angry. I offered his new task which is quite new to him. I even persuaded my boss to give him new incentive package. But all of them knocked wall. His reaction was just he did not care. Even worse he did not want to talk about his situation. I want to be hard on him, but since we are friends and coworkers, I really can not see it will work. Even it works, I can not so quickly change my self from friend and coworker into manager. As a novice in management, I am really overwhelmed! I do not want get him fired, we are friends and I do not see him fired as my team number. What can I do? Thank you guys!

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  • Advice for Architecture Design Logic for software application

    - by Prasad
    Hi, I have a framework of basic to complex set of objects/classes (C++) running into around 500. With some rules and regulations - all these objects can communicate with each other and hence can cover most of the common queries in the domain. My Dream: I want to provide these objects as icons/glyphs (as I learnt recently) on a workspace. All these objects can be dragged/dropped into the workspace. They have to communicate only through their methods(interface) and in addition to few iterative and conditional statements. All these objects are arranged finally to execute a protocol/workflow/dataflow/process. After drawing the flow, the user clicks the Execute/run button. All the user interaction should be multi-touch enabled. The best way to show my dream is : Jeff Han's Multitouch Video. consider Jeff is playing with my objects instead of the google maps. :-) it should be like playing a jigsaw puzzle. Objective: how can I achieve the following while working on this final product: a) the development should be flexible to enable provision for web services b) the development should enable easy web application development c) The development should enable client-server architecture - d) further it should also enable mouse based drag/drop desktop application like Adobe programs etc. I mean to say: I want to economize on investments. Now I list my efforts till now in design : a) Created an Editor (VB) where the user writes (manually) the object / class code b) On Run/Execute, the code is copied into a main() function and passed to interpreter. c) Catch the output and show it in the console. The interpreter can be separated to become a server and the Editor can become the client. This needs lot of standard client-server architecture work. But some how I am not comfortable in the tightness of this system. Without interpreter is there much faster and better embeddable solution to this? - other than writing a special compiler for these objects. Recently learned about AXIS-C++ can help me - looks like - a friend suggested. Is that the way to go ? Here are my questions: (pl. consider me a self taught programmer and NOT my domain) a) From the stage of C++ objects to multi-touch product, how can I make sure I will develop the parallel product/service models as well.? What should be architecture aspects I should consider ? b) What technologies are best suited for this? c) If I am thinking of moving to Cloud Computing, how difficult/ how redundant / how unnecessary my efforts will be ? d) How much time in months would it take to get the first beta ? I take the liberty to ask if any of the experts here are interested in this project, please email me: [email protected] Thank you for any help. Looking forward.

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  • Performance Optimization for Matrix Rotation

    - by Summer_More_More_Tea
    Hello everyone: I'm now trapped by a performance optimization lab in the book "Computer System from a Programmer's Perspective" described as following: In a N*N matrix M, where N is multiple of 32, the rotate operation can be represented as: Transpose: interchange elements M(i,j) and M(j,i) Exchange rows: Row i is exchanged with row N-1-i A example for matrix rotation(N is 3 instead of 32 for simplicity): ------- ------- |1|2|3| |3|6|9| ------- ------- |4|5|6| after rotate is |2|5|8| ------- ------- |7|8|9| |1|4|7| ------- ------- A naive implementation is: #define RIDX(i,j,n) ((i)*(n)+(j)) void naive_rotate(int dim, pixel *src, pixel *dst) { int i, j; for (i = 0; i < dim; i++) for (j = 0; j < dim; j++) dst[RIDX(dim-1-j, i, dim)] = src[RIDX(i, j, dim)]; } I come up with an idea by inner-loop-unroll. The result is: Code Version Speed Up original 1x unrolled by 2 1.33x unrolled by 4 1.33x unrolled by 8 1.55x unrolled by 16 1.67x unrolled by 32 1.61x I also get a code snippet from pastebin.com that seems can solve this problem: void rotate(int dim, pixel *src, pixel *dst) { int stride = 32; int count = dim >> 5; src += dim - 1; int a1 = count; do { int a2 = dim; do { int a3 = stride; do { *dst++ = *src; src += dim; } while(--a3); src -= dim * stride + 1; dst += dim - stride; } while(--a2); src += dim * (stride + 1); dst -= dim * dim - stride; } while(--a1); } After carefully read the code, I think main idea of this solution is treat 32 rows as a data zone, and perform the rotating operation respectively. Speed up of this version is 1.85x, overwhelming all the loop-unroll version. Here are the questions: In the inner-loop-unroll version, why does increment slow down if the unrolling factor increase, especially change the unrolling factor from 8 to 16, which does not effect the same when switch from 4 to 8? Does the result have some relationship with depth of the CPU pipeline? If the answer is yes, could the degrade of increment reflect pipeline length? What is the probable reason for the optimization of data-zone version? It seems that there is no too much essential difference from the original naive version. EDIT: My test environment is Intel Centrino Duo processor and the verion of gcc is 4.4 Any advice will be highly appreciated! Kind regards!

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  • How to set a key binding to make Emacs as transparent/opaque as I want?

    - by Vivi
    I want to have a command in Emacs to make it as opaque/transparent as I want (refer to the fabulous question that pointed out that transparency is possible in Emacs, and the EmacsWiki page linked there which has the code I am using below). The EmacsWiki code sets "C-c t" to toggle the previously set transparency on and off: ;;(set-frame-parameter (selected-frame) 'alpha '(<active> [<inactive>])) (set-frame-parameter (selected-frame) 'alpha '(85 50)) (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(alpha 85 50)) enter code here(eval-when-compile (require 'cl)) (defun toggle-transparency () (interactive) (if (/= (cadr (find 'alpha (frame-parameters nil) :key #'car)) 100) (set-frame-parameter nil 'alpha '(100 100)) (set-frame-parameter nil 'alpha '(85 60)))) (global-set-key (kbd "C-c t") 'toggle-transparency) What I would like to do is to be able to choose the % transparency when I am in Emacs. If possible, I would like a command where I type for example "C-c t N" (where N is the % opaqueness) for the active frame, and then "M-c t N" for the inactive window. If that can't be done like that, then maybe a command where if I type "C-c t" it asks me for the number which gives the opaqueness of the active window (and the same for the inactive window using "M-c t"). Thanks in advance for your time :) Below are just some comments that are not important to answer the question if you are not interested: I really want this because when I told my supervisor I was learning Emacs he said TexShop is much better and that I am using software from the 80's. I told him about the wonders of Emacs and he said TexShop has all of it and more. I matched everything he showed me except for the transparency (though he couldn't match the preview inside Emacs from preview-latex). I found the transparency thing by chance, and now I want to show him Emacs rules! I imagine this will be a piece of cake for some of you, and even though I could get it done if I spent enough time trying to learn lisp or reading around, I am not a programmer and I have only been using Emacs and a mac for a week. I am lost already as it is! So thanks in advance for your time and help - I will learn lisp eventually!

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  • Creating a spam list with a web crawler in python

    - by user313623
    Hey guys, I'm not trying to do anything malicious here, I just need to do some homework. I'm a fairly new programmer, I'm using python 3.0, and I having difficulty using recursion for problem-solving. I've been stuck on this question for quite a while. Here's the assignment: Write a recursive method spam(url, n) that takes a url of a web page as input and a non-negative integer n, collects all the email address contained in the web page and adds them to a global dictionary variable spam_dict, and then recursively calls itself on every http hyperlink contained in the web page. You will use a dictionary so only one copy of every email address is save; your dictionary will store (key,value) pairs (email, email). The recursive call should use the parameter n-1 instead of n. If n = 0, you should collect the email addresses but no recursive calls should be made. The parameter n is used to limit the recursion to at most depth n. You will need to use the solutions of the two above problems; you method spam() will call the methods links2() and emails() and possibly other functions as well. Notes: 1. running spam() directly will produce no output on the screen; to find your spam_dict, you will need to read the value of spam_dict, and you will also need to reset it to the empty dictionary before every run of spam. 2. Recall how global variables are used. Usage: spam_dict = {} spam('http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/lperkovic/csc242/test1.html',0) spam_dict.keys() dict_keys([]) spam_dict = {} spam('http://reed.cs.depaul.edu/lperkovic/csc242/test1.html',1) spam_dict.keys() dict_keys(['[email protected]', '[email protected]']) So far, I've written a function that traverses web pages and puts all the links in a nice little list, and what I wanted to do was call that functions. And why would I use recursion on a dictionary? And how? I don't understand how n ties into all of this. def links2(url): content = str(urlopen(url).read()) myparser = MyHTMLParser() myparser.feed(content) lst = myparser.get() mergelst = [] for link in lst: mergelst.append(urljoin(lst[0],link)) print(mergelst) Any input (except why spam is bad) would be greatly appreciated. Also, I realize that the above function could probably look better, if you have a way to do it, I'm all ears. However, all I need is the point is for the program to produce the proper output.

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  • random, Graphics point ,searching- algorithm, via dual for loop set

    - by LoneXcoder
    hello and thanks for joining me in my journey to the custom made algorithm for "guess where the pixel is" this for Loop set (over Point.X, Point.Y), is formed in consecutive/linear form: //Original\initial Location Point initPoint = new Point(150, 100); // No' of pixels to search left off X , and above Y int preXsrchDepth, preYsrchDepth; // No' of pixels to search to the right of X, And Above Y int postXsrchDepth, postYsrchDepth; preXsrchDepth = 10; // will start search at 10 pixels to the left from original X preYsrchDepth = 10; // will start search at 10 pixels above the original Y postXsrchDepth = 10; // will stop search at 10 pixels to the right from X postYsrchDepth = 10; // will stop search at 10 pixels below Y int StopXsearch = initPoint.X + postXsrchDepth; //stops X Loop itarations at initial pointX + depth requested to serch right of it int StopYsearch = initPoint.Y + postYsrchDepth; //stops Y Loop itarations at initial pointY + depth requested below original location int CountDownX, CountDownY; // Optional not requierd for loop but will reports the count down how many iterations left (unless break; triggerd ..uppon success) Point SearchFromPoint = Point.Empty; //the point will be used for (int StartX = initPoint.X - preXsrchDepth; StartX < StopXsearch; StartX++) { SearchFromPoint.X = StartX; for (int StartY = initPoint.Y - preYsrchDepth; StartY < StpY; StartY++) { CountDownX = (initPoint.X - StartX); CountDownY=(initPoint.Y - StartY); SearchFromPoint.Y = StartY; if (SearchSuccess) { same = true; AAdToAppLog("Search Report For: " + imgName + "Search Completed Successfully On Try " + CountDownX + ":" + CountDownY); break; } } } <-10 ---- -5--- -1 X +1--- +5---- +10 what i would like to do is try a way of instead is have a little more clever approach <+8---+5-- -8 -5 -- +2 +10 X -2 - -10 -8-- -6 ---1- -3 | +8 | -10 Y +1 -6 | | +9 .... I do know there's a wheel already invented in this field (even a full-trailer truck amount of wheels (: ) but as a new programmer, I really wanted to start of with a simple way and also related to my field of interest in my project. can anybody show an idea of his, he learnt along the way to Professionalism in algorithm /programming having tests to do on few approaches (kind'a random cleverness...) will absolutely make the day and perhaps help some others viewing this page in the future to come it will be much easier for me to understand if you could use as much as possible similar naming to variables i used or implenet your code example ...it will be Greatly appreciated if used with my code sample, unless my metod is a realy flavorless. p.s i think that(atleast as human being) the tricky part is when throwing inconsecutive numbers you loose track of what you didn't yet use, how do u take care of this too . thanks allot in advance looking forward to your participation !

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  • Do you feel underappreciated or resent the geek/nerd stigma?

    - by dotnetdev
    At work we have a piece of A4 paper with the number of everyone in the office. The structure of this document is laid out in rectangles, by department. I work for the department that does all the technical stuff. That includes support—bear in mind that the support staff isn't educated in IT but just has experience in PC maintenance and providing support to a system we resell but don't have source code access to, project manager, team leader, a network administrator, a product manager, and me, a programmer. Anyway, on this paper, we are labelled as nerds and geeks. I did take a little offence to this, as much as it is light hearted (but annoying and old) humour. I have a vivid image that a geek is someone who doesn't go out but codes all day. I code all day at home and at work (when I have something to code...), but I keep balance by going out. I don't know why it is only people who work with computers that get such a stigma. No other profession really gets the same stigma—skilled, technical, or whatever. An account manager (and this is hardly a skilled job) says, "Perhaps [MY NAME HERE] could write some geeky code tomorrow to add this functionality to the website." It is funny how I get such an unfair stigma but I am so pivotal. In fact, if it wasn't for me, the company would have nothing to sell so the account managers would be redundant! I make systems, they get sold, and this is what pays the wages. It's funny how the account managers get a commission for how many systems they sell, or manage to make clients resubscribe to. Yet I built the thing in the first place! On top of that, my brother says all I do is type stuff on a keyboard all day. Surely if I did, I'd be typing at my normal typing speed of 100wpm+ as if I am writing a blog entry. Instead, I plan as I code along on the fly if commercial pressures and time prohibit proper planning. I never type as if I'm writing normal English. There is more to our jobs than just typing code. And my brother is a pipe fitter with no formal qualifications in his name. I could easily, and perhaps more justifiably, say he just manipulates a spanner or something. Does you feel underappreciated or that a geek/nerd stigma is undeserved or unfair?

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  • Function Point Analysis -- a seriously over-estimating technique?

    - by kizzx2
    I know questions about FPA has been asked numerous times before, but this time I'm taking a more analytical angle at it, backed up with data. 1. First, some data This question is based on a tutorial. He had a "Sample Count" section where he demonstrated it step by step. You can see some screenshots of his sample application here. In the end, he calculated the unadjusted FP to be 99. There is another article on InformIT with industry data on typical hour/FP. It ranges from 2 hours/FP to 27.4 hours/FP. Let's try to stick with 2 for the moment (since SO readers are probably the more efficient crowd :p). 2. Reality check!? Now just check out the screenshots again. Do a little math here 99 * 2 = 198 hours 198 hours / 40 hours per week = 5 weeks Seriously? That sample application is going to take 5 weeks to implement? Is it just my feeling that it wouldn't take any decent programmer longer than one week to have it completed? Now let's try estimating the cost of the project. We'll use New York's minimum wage at the moment (Wikipedia), which is $7.25 198 * 7.25 = $1435.5 From what I could see from the screenshots, this application is a small excel-improvement app. I could have bought MS Office Pro for 200 bucks which gives me greater interoperability (.xls files) and flexibility (spreadsheets). (For the record, that same Web site has another article discussing productivity. It seems like they typically use 4.2 hours/FP, which gives us even more shocking stats: 99 * 4.2 = 415 hours = 10 weeks = almost 3 whopping months! 415 hours * $7.25 = $3000 zomg (That's even assuming that all our poor coders get the minimum wage!) 3. Am I missing something here? Right now, I could come up with several possible explanation: FPA is really only suited for bigger projects (1000+ FPs) so it becomes extremely inaccurate at smaller scale. The hours/FP metric fluctuates abruptly from team to team, project to project. For a small project like this, we could have used something like 0.5 hour/FP or something. (Now this kind of makes the whole estimation thing pointless, unless my firm does the same type of projects for several years with the same team, not really common.) From my experience with several software metrics, Function Point is really not a lightweight metric. If the hour/FP thing fluctuates so much, then what's the point, maybe I could have gone with User Story Points which is a lot faster to get and arguably almost as uncertain. What would be the FP experts' answers to this?

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  • How do we, as a community, help encourage programming in public schools? (Or state Schools for the U

    - by NoMoreZealots
    PRIMARY MOTIVATION My office gets involved with the "First Robotics" competitions and one thing that lingers year to year is the students typically have no preparation for doing even simple programming as part of the public schools system. While the science classes provide some basic grasp of mechanical and electrical concepts, by in large computer programming gets no coverage from the curriculum. (This my be different in other areas of the country/world.) What makes it worse is there is only a short period of time you have to prepare the student's and help them design the robot. Talking to some professors from local colleges, it's a problem because you can't assume even the most basic understanding for freshman CS majors. Languages like Python, Lua and BASIC are simple enough for at least high school level students, if not younger. SCOPE So how do you get public schools to support a programming, at least to the level of "Try it in BASIC" examples that used to be at the end of a chapter in my Algebra book? At least enough to prepare them for event's such as the FIRST Robotic competitions. Which the primary objectives are to teach problem solving and team work, and to possible foster an interest in Math, Science and Engineering in general. (Not force feed to them, as some people her seem to be implying.) Edit: Why teach kids: (Since 2000 CS enrollment in US colleges has decreased by 70% while college enrollment has increased, this is a PROBLEM.) Saying there is no value in teaching someone programming in Jr./High school because they might think "they know programming." Is like saying there's no value in teaching High school science and physics, because they might decide they "know physics." Leading to abuse like: "I passed a high school physics class, I'm going to develop a Unified Quantum Gravitational Theory." Better Prepared students are better students. Instead it would allows college programs to raise the bar on the entry level courses, allowing students to be weeded out based on their understanding of more advanced material. Plus people who did poorly in that in topic in High school aren't as likely to say "I think there's money in computer's so I'll computer science." Plus if people take it in high school and decide THEN that it's not for them, it's better than them wasting their money to PAY a college to figure that out. The result is that people who take the degree are more likely to succeed and be there for the RIGHT reasons. (i.e. It's what they REALLY want to do. And that's REALLY the key to being good at anything.) Programming is like anything else, the more practice and genuine interest you have the better you get. If you start them later, they get less practice. The earlier give them the opportunity to start, the more practice they will get. All other things equal, the more practice the better the programmer.

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  • Good working habits to observe in project development?

    - by Will Marcouiller
    As my development experience grows, I see fit to stick to best practices from here and there to build somehow my own working practices while observing the conventions, etc. I'm currently working on a project which my goals is to graduate the security access model from an environment's Active Directory to another environment's automatically. I don't know for any of you, but as far as I'm concerned, I meet some real difficulties sticking to only one way, then develop. I mean, I learn something new everyday while visiting SO, and recently wanted to get acquainted with generics. On the other hand, I better know the Façade pattern which proved to be very practical in transactional programming in process systems. This seems to be less practical for desktop application as there are plenty of variables to consider in a desktop application that you don't have to care in transactional programming, as you're playing only with information data. As for my current project, I have: Groups; Organizational Units; Users. Which are all considered an entry in the Active Directory. This points out to be a good candidate for generics, as also approached this way by Bart de Smett's Linq to AD on CodePlex. He has a DirectorySource<T>, and to manage let's say groups, then he instantiate a source with the proper type: var groups = new DirectorySource<Group>(); This seems to be very a good way of doing. Despite, I seem to go from one pattern to another and I don't seem to be able to strictly stick to one. While I'm aware that one must not stay with only one way of doing, since each pattern statisfies certain advantages, while also illustrating disadvantages under some usage conditions, I seem to want to develop with both patterns having a singleton Façade class with the underlying factories which represent the sub systems: GroupsFactory; UsersFactory; OrganizationalUnitsFactory. Each of the factories offers the possible operations for their respective entity (group, user, OU). To make a very long story short, I often have plenty of ideas while developping and this causes me some trouble, as I go from an idea to another feeling completely lost after a while. Yet I understand the advantages and disavantages, I have no trouble choosing from one pattern to another depending on the situation. Nevertheless, when it comes to programming itself, if I'm not part of a team, I feel sometimes like I can't do anything good. That is, because I can't stand not doing something "perfect" the first time. The role I play within the project is both: the project manager and the programmer. I am more comfortable in the project manager role, architectural role, analytical role than the developer's. Has any of you some good habbits to observe in project development? Thanks to you all! =)

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  • Multiple infowindows - tearing my hair out

    - by thewinchester
    Ok, I'll admit I'm nowhere near the best programmer on the planet - and I'm used to the answer staring me right in the face but not making sense of it. Problem I need to display multiple markers on a map, each with their own infowindow. I have created the individual markers without a problem, but don't know how to create the infowindows for each. Steps so far I am generating a map using the V3 API within an ASP-based website, with markers being created from a set of DB records. The markers are created by looping through a rs and defining a marker() with the relevant variables: var myLatlng = new google.maps.LatLng(lat,long); var marker = new google.maps.Marker({ map: map, position: myLatlng, title: 'locationname', icon: 'http://google-maps-icons.googlecode.com/files/park.png' }); This is creating all the relevant markers in their correct locations. What I need to do now, and am not sure of how to achieve is give each of them their own unique infowindow which I can use to display information and links relevant to that marker. Source <script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script> <script language="javascript"> $(document).ready(function() { //Google Maps var myOptions = { zoom: 5, center: new google.maps.LatLng(-26.66, 122.25), mapTypeControl: false, mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP, navigationControl: true, navigationControlOptions: { style: google.maps.NavigationControlStyle.SMALL } } var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map_canvas"), myOptions); <!-- While locations_haslatlong not BOF.EOF --> <% While ((Repeat1__numRows <> 0) AND (NOT locations_haslatlong.EOF)) %> var myLatlng = new google.maps.LatLng(<%=(locations_haslatlong.Fields.Item("llat").Value)%>,<%=(locations_haslatlong.Fields.Item("llong").Value)%>); var marker = new google.maps.Marker({ map: map, position: myLatlng, title: '<%=(locations_haslatlong.Fields.Item("ldescription").Value)%>', icon: 'http://google-maps-icons.googlecode.com/files/park.png', clickable: true, }); <% Repeat1__index=Repeat1__index+1 Repeat1__numRows=Repeat1__numRows-1 locations_haslatlong.MoveNext() Wend %> <!-- End While locations_haslatlong not BOF.EOF --> google.maps.event.addListener(marker, 'click', function() { infowindow.open(map,marker); }); google.maps.event.addListener(marker, 'dblclick', function() { map.setZoom(14); }); });

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  • Autocomplete server-side implementation

    - by toluju
    What is a fast and efficient way to implement the server-side component for an autocomplete feature in an html input box? I am writing a service to autocomplete user queries in our web interface's main search box, and the completions are displayed in an ajax-powered dropdown. The data we are running queries against is simply a large table of concepts our system knows about, which matches roughly with the set of wikipedia page titles. For this service obviously speed is of utmost importance, as responsiveness of the web page is important to the user experience. The current implementation simply loads all concepts into memory in a sorted set, and performs a simple log(n) lookup on a user keystroke. The tailset is then used to provide additional matches beyond the closest match. The problem with this solution is that it does not scale. It currently is running up against the VM heap space limit (I've set -Xmx2g, which is about the most we can push on our 32 bit machines), and this prevents us from expanding our concept table or adding more functionality. Switching to 64-bit VMs on machines with more memory isn't an immediate option. I've been hesitant to start working on a disk-based solution as I am concerned that disk seek time will kill performance. Are there possible solutions that will let me scale better, either entirely in memory or with some fast disk-backed implementations? Edits: @Gandalf: For our use case it is important the the autocompletion is comprehensive and isn't just extra help for the user. As for what we are completing, it is a list of concept-type pairs. For example, possible entries are [("Microsoft", "Software Company"), ("Jeff Atwood", "Programmer"), ("StackOverflow.com", "Website")]. We are using Lucene for the full search once a user selects an item from the autocomplete list, but I am not yet sure Lucene would work well for the autocomplete itself. @Glen: No databases are being used here. When I'm talking about a table I just mean the structured representation of my data. @Jason Day: My original implementation to this problem was to use a Trie, but the memory bloat with that was actually worse than the sorted set due to needing a large number of object references. I'll read on the ternary search trees to see if it could be of use.

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  • Recommended textbook for machine-level programming?

    - by Norman Ramsey
    I'm looking at textbooks for an undergraduate course in machine-level programming. If the perfect book existed, this is what it would look like: Uses examples written in C or assembly language, or both. Covers machine-level operations such as two's-complement integer arithmetic, bitwise operations, and floating-point arithmetic. Explains how caches work and how they affect performance. Explains machine instructions or assembly instructions. Bonus if the example assembly language includes x86; triple bonus if it includes x86-64 (aka AMD64). Explains how C values and data structures are represented using hardware registers and memory. Explains how C control structures are translated into assembly language using conditional and unconditional branch instructions. Explains something about procedure calling conventions and how procedure calls are implemented at the machine level. Books I might be interested in would probably have the words "machine organization" or "computer architecture" in the title. Here are some books I'm considering but am not quite happy with: Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Randy Bryant and Dave O'Hallaron. This is quite a nice book, but it's a book for a broad, shallow course in systems programming, and it contains a great deal of material my students don't need. Also, it is just out in a second edition, which will make it expensive. Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface by Dave Patterson and John Hennessy. This is also a very nice book, but it contains way more information about how the hardware works than my students need. Also, the exercises look boring. Finally, it has a show-stopping bug: it is based very heavily on MIPS hardware and the use of a MIPS simulator. My students need to learn how to use DDD, and I can't see getting this to work on a simulator. Not to mention that I can't see them cross-compiling their code for the simulator, and so on and so forth. Another flaw is that the book mentions the x86 architecture only to sneer at it. I am entirely sympathetic to this point of view, but news flash! You guys lost! Write Great Code Vol I: Understanding the Machine by Randall Hyde. I haven't evaluated this book as thoroughly as the other two. It has a lot of what I need, but the translation from high-level language to assembler is deferred to Volume Two, which has mixed reviews. My students will be annoyed if I make them buy a two-volume series, even if the price of those two volumes is smaller than the price of other books. I would really welcome other suggestions of books that would help students in a class where they are to learn how C-language data structures and code are translated to machine-level data structures and code and where they learn how to think about performance, with an emphasis on the cache.

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  • Function Point Analysis -- a seriously overestimating technique?

    - by kizzx2
    I know questions about FPA has been asked numerous times before, but this time I'm taking a more analytical angle at it, backed up with data. 1. First, some data This question is based on a tutorial. He had a "Sample Count" section where he demonstrated it step by step. You can see some screenshots of his sample application here. In the end, he calculated the unadjusted FP to be 99. There is another article on InformIT with industry data on typical hour/FP. It ranges from 2 hours/FP to 27.4 hours/FP. Let's try to stick with 2 for the moment (since SO readers are probably the more efficient crowd :p). 2. Reality check!? Now just check out the screenshots again. Do a little math here 99 * 2 = 198 hours 198 hours / 40 hours per week = 5 weeks Seriously? That sample application is going to take 5 weeks to implement? Is it just my feeling that it wouldn't take any decent programmer longer than one week (I"m not even saying weekend) to have it completed? Now let's try estimating the cost of the project. We'll use New York's minimum wage at the moment (Wikipedia), which is $7.25 198 * 7.25 = $1435.5 From what I could see from the screenshots, this application is a small excel-improvement app. I could have bought MS Office Pro for 200 bucks which gives me greater interoperability (.xls files) and flexibility (spreadsheets). (For the record, that same Web site has another article discussing productivity. It seems like they typically use 4.2 hours/FP, which gives us even more shocking stats: 99 * 4.2 = 415 hours = 10 weeks = almost 3 whopping months! 415 hours * $7.25 = $3000 zomg (That's even assuming that all our poor coders get the minimum wage!) 3. Am I missing something here? Right now, I could come up with several possible explanation: FPA is really only suited for bigger projects (1000+ FPs) so it becomes extremely inaccurate at smaller scale. The hours/FP metric fluctuates abruptly from team to team, project to project. For a small project like this, we could have used something like 0.5 hour/FP or something. (Now this kind of makes the whole estimation thing pointless, unless my firm does the same type of projects for several years with the same team, not really common.) From my experience with several software metrics, Function Point is really not a lightweight metric. If the hour/FP thing fluctuates so much, then what's the point, maybe I could have gone with User Story Points which is a lot faster to get and arguably almost as uncertain. What would be the FP experts' answers to this?

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